There is an old story about Abraham Lincoln spending vast amounts of time in the telegraph room of the War Department waiting for dispatches from his commanders in the field. One day, according to Lincoln biographer John C. Waugh, after a particularly long night, the president turned to the telegraph operators and said, “Well, boys, I am down to raisins.”

When asked to explain the phrase, Lincoln told the story of the little girl who celebrated her birthday by feasting on sweets, followed by raisins for dessert. Soon, she became violently sick and started throwing up everything she had eaten. Her concerned parents summoned a doctor, who upon investigating her issue, told the parents the danger was past and that she was “down to raisins.”

That’s us; that’s you and me, and certainly that’s the people in the Gulf region. We have all become so sickened by the events surrounding the collapse of the Deepwater Horizon and the broad-spectrum, oil-soaked destruction, which has not even begun to sink its teeth in, that we are all down to raisins. […]